Gravitational
by When the Moon Met the Sun
Summary: One-Shot. There is a tide in the affairs of men, but after every push and pull the only ones left standing are those with the sharpest words. ShunxRunoxSpectra


_**After so long without writing, here is a spur-of-the-moment one-shot. Honestly, this took about an hour total.**_

_**ShunxRunoxSpectra**_

_**Disclaimer: Do not own.**_

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**Gravitational**

"I don't need to hear this! Get out! How many times have I told you to stay away?" she spat in his face, just another verbal injury to add to his collection. He didn't flatter her with a flinch, instead staring impassively at her through amber orbs. There was the fatigue of routine permeating the atmosphere, but only he seemed to notice.

She met his unwavering gaze with a steely glare of her own, aquamarine eyes bright with anger–or was it sorrow?

He couldn't tell anymore, or maybe he never could. He'd grown to accept that she was as two-faced as she was blind. The mask she wore always managed to lure him, bait him, into the circle of her arms and deceptive ways. She was his tide, the water that calmed him with its rhythmic motion, but also the one who always took more than she gave. It was in this fashion that she retreated more and more, forcing him to wade out into the sandy desolation she left behind if he wanted to merely ghost over her skin.

"Dammit, Shun, stop it!" she bellowed as he stood stock-still in her doorway. "Stop coming back."

He refused to move, shooting a hand out and bracing himself against the doorframe. He had something to say, and she needed to listen.

Runo used all her strength to push against him but realized that it was hopeless and resorted to using her weapon of choice: her silver tongue.

"Haven't you noticed that you mean nothing to me? I don't need you around. I have a king now, and he'd give me anything and everything you didn't. Don't you see it's pointless? I don't want you anymore. You can't keep running back to me like a puppy with its tail between its legs."

Then, the final blow:

"You're pathetic."

The attack almost caught him by surprise–her ruthlessness knew no bounds–but he schooled his expression at the last possible moment. She had a king, that he knew, a red-clad epitome of lustrous ambition and material avarice.

At some point in her torture of him, he stopped being angry at both she and her king. Shun could only comprehend that he comforted himself with the tears she'd shed on him when the king erred. When the rest of the world turned red around her, he could pose as her savior and as her saint.

"Shun," she said softly, her tone changing abruptly. The look upon her face shifted as well, a trembling lower lip and shimmering blue eyes facing him sardonically, as if for the first time.

"Have I always been this nasty?" she whispered loud enough for him to hear, tempting him to answer in the negative.

He didn't. He refused to fall for her trickery again. It was that line–or some variation of it–that had broken him again and again. His answer would spur a declaration from her condemning him for affecting her so much.

Initially, he'd accepted that perhaps it was he who caused her strife. If only he'd realized sooner he was only a means to reach her pain-free end.

Runo had turned their confrontations into battles he could never hope to win. The tables turned on him too quickly, and her attacks would only increase in intensity.

He would not retaliate. There was no honor in defeating a deceitful Black Hand.

In the end, it wasn't a battle against her, but against her king. Saints didn't win battles, not when all the king's horses and all the king's men opposed him. If he could just swim to shore, he might be able to breathe, able to win.

Slowly, he began to turn his back to the tide because he'd rather forfeit than continue fighting.

"I need you...I'm sorry."

He would not be as quick as she to shift emotions. She was blind to his awakening from her nightmare. The journey back home had started and she remained in aristocratic ignorance.

"I'm leaving," he stated without preamble or so much as an explanation. The truth floated inertly until she grasped it out of the water and he was far from sight. He'd escaped her hold forever. She stared out to land, a silent plea to him forming on her lips.

Please...please, don't leave me.

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**_Well, I admit there were some parts I loved and others I didn't. Care to share your opinion in a review?_**

**_Cocoacharm15_**


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